Disability and Health Care Professionals

French, Sally and John Swain (2001). The Relationship between Disabled People and Health and Welfare Professionals, Ch 32 (pp 734-753) in Handbook of Disability Studies Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).

We discussed in our last seminar class a debate about the continuation of research funding and engagement in finding ‘cures’ for impairments. Many people could not comprehend why someone who, for example, is in a wheelchair would not want to walk again. Dr. Stone related this to a hegemonic viewpoint in which people in the West suffer from in regards to disability issues. The topic definitely shocked a few people in the class regarding the thought that someone who is disabled would actually want to be disabled and not be ‘fixed’ by their healthcare professionals. I believe this goes hand in hand with this week’s topic on health and welfare professionals and the relationship with disabled people. Sally French’s article, The Relationship between Disabled People and Health and Welfare Professionals, addresses many issues through a qualitative approach to how many people with impairments feel towards health care workers.
It seems that when discussing health care in class there was this “either/or” approach to dealing with disabilities. The argument was that people with impairments should want to and need to have the hope that one day they will ‘be normal’. If there is not a cure right now that society and health care workers are working on finding such cures to provide the ‘repair’ or the ‘solution’. But we forget that someone’s health is not just a singular definition of one’s physical wellbeing but also the spiritual, psychological and social welfare. If western society regarded health and health care in a much more holistic concept then the relationship of disabled people and health professionals would also be viewed and implemented in an unrestricted concept.
We need to begin to ask the questions about our belief in health and what it means to be well. Is there only one way of being healthy? I believe that western societal definition of health contributes to the lack of understanding in disability rights. Health is mostly understood in a physical sense. This being when someone is free of disease and impairment. However, rather than focusing on diseases and illnesses, there should be a desire to look at more encompassing factors of life. When health is defined as the mental, physical and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity, cultural and social practices become critical contributing factors. This approach transcends boundaries of only physical abilities and looks at health as a more holistic concept. If such a concept did exist, what would this mean to be healthful?
The concept of health is significantly important when addressing health care professionals. The impact and power a professional exudes is due largely to the connection of importance we place on the concept at hand. Because, the concept of health is mostly dominated in the physical realm and the mental and social well being is largely ignored, so too is health treatment impacted. The west’s sense of care is about correcting physical ailments and largely ignores the patient’s sense of self as an individual and how they maintain their presence socially.
Getting back to the French’s article, she examines the relationship, ideologies and organization between disabled people and professionals. French looks at three aspects to professional power that are detrimental to the relationship between disabled people and health professionals. First concern is the power in which an individual health care professional is seemingly able to assess, prognosis and deem to solve. This dominance is extremely problematic because it gives an exponential amount of power to one individual. The second aspect involves the dogma western society surrounds professionals and their indispensable expertise. The professional is not questioned and considered many times to be the be all, end all of their solutions and interventions.
Lastly, professional care workers are many times seen as representatives of the state, economic or political leaders. However, they too have their own self interest and agenda, therefore are skewed in what they are recommending or standing behind. All three of these concepts regarding professionalism in health care combine to regard professionals in the health and welfare field as the dominant position to dispense definitions, ideologies, prognosis, research and solutions. Not to mention, “the power of professionals in controlling language, knowledge and the social response to disability has defined professional-disabled people relations” (French, 738). One of the most disempowering experiences for disabled people is through health ideology and rationalizing that health is a physical embodiment that views disability and impairment as a tragedy and something that needs to be avoided or fixed.
Although, I related this week’s readings to last week’s class discussion I believe them both to be extremely relevant to each other. Western health concepts are essentially flawed when actually addressing one’s health. Therefore, when looking at relationships between health care specialists, professionals and disabled people we need to look at our societal ideology and where we place importance, power and define health. We also need to look at the prevailing ideology within health to discover the prejudice between disabled people and health care professionals. French explores the discourse of needs and assessment along with the pervasive ideology of normality within disability but also fundamentally health and how it is regarded. There needs to be a change in the communication within professional-disabled people relations, but I would argue that more importantly we need to address how society views health in the first place to be able to rectify the relationship and power dynamics of disabled people and health care professionals.